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Baldur's Gate Wiki:Policy
Hello and thank you for taking a look at our policies. Editing the wiki As a Wikia, this site is entirely editable, allowing multiple persons to change and improve the site. If there are any parts of the wiki you cannot change but think you could improve, e.g. features, infobox templates, organization please contact an admin. Language This wiki uses American English (AmE) as the standard language to write articles, because most of the games bearing the title of Baldur's Gate are written in American English. However, we don't punish contributors who write articles in British English (BrE). When you pick either AmE or BrE, make sure that you won't mix them when you write an article. Articles may not be written in any other official language. If you are interested in setting up a Baldur's Gate Wiki in a different language, contact an admin and they can help advise you. If an item or spell found in the game is either BrE or AmE spelling, don't correct it. For example the spell Ghost Armor which is present in all Baldur's Gate games should not be translated to Ghost Armour and vice versa. This wiki does not accept articles being written in any informal language and strong language is forbidden. e.g. Shuffle on over into the castle, dude...and y'know what? Get ready for a damn tough fight. Ignoring this rule may lead to deleting or reverting of the article(s) which violate this rule. Editors who violate this rule will be warned before they are blocked. This applies to comment sections, user talk pages and the as well, with less restrictions on informality. (It's talk, after all.) There are some differences between American (AmE) and British English (BrE) spelling and grammar as shown below. Some words in AmE may have a different meaning in BrE or they use different words for the same object. For more examples of words and information on spelling, see the external sources to the Wikipedia articles. Article point of view and perspective All articles must be written with a neutral point of view in the third person perspective. This means articles may not have personal comments from the writers. Example 1: I / he found a dagger +2 at location X. This should be corrected to: A dagger +2 can be found at location X. Example 2: Rashad's Talon is an awesome weapon, because it offers a +2 damage bonus. This should be corrected to: Many players think that Rashad's Talon is an awesome weapon, because of the +2 damage bonus it offers. Lore, background information, sources of information This game is set in the Forgotten Realms. This realm has a huge expanded universe, detailing characters, locations and items not mentioned in the game. Information on pages at this wiki should only be based on what can be learned in the games, game manuals or novels about the stories of the games. There are three official novels about the story told in Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II which follow the games' plotlines, and information from them may be included where relevant. The only exception to this rule is for information about modifications of game files (mods) and cheats. If you want to find out more about the rest of the Forgotten Realms, please visit the Forgotten Realms Wiki. This wiki discourages plagiarism; copying text from a source and pretending this is written by you, the contributor, even if this is from another wiki, is unacceptable. The text which was copied from other sources must be rewritten or be removed of the sections of the page. If information from an outside sources is used, please reference it properly at the bottom of the article. Personal pages Every registered user on this wiki has a profile page and a talk page. Talk and profile pages of users may be written in any language, but strong language must be kept within an acceptable limit. For the general interest of the wiki, it is preferred that profile and talk pages are written in either American English or British English. Tactics and walkthroughs The wiki primarily provides information on characters and items so players can make their own educated decisions in the game. However, it is permissible to make walkthroughs for areas and tactics of certain creatures and battles on the same page, as long as it is obvious to the readers that they are reading a walkthrough or a tactics section. Referring to the Player Character When mentioning the playable character, the character you created, refer to them as "Gorion's Ward" (subsequently also shortly "Ward") or the "protagonist"; alternatively, consider referring to "the party", e.g. The ogres will attack the party as soon as they enter the cave. The term "player" should only be used when referring to the person who's directly playing the game, such as for topics about game controls, for example. It could also be used for situations "outside" the storyline, e.g. for character generation. "You" should be used sparsely, if at all, and only in walkthrough, gameplay or strategy sections. However, in these as well it may still be better to refer to the Ward or the party. Use of screenshots As this wiki is based entirely on a computer game, screenshots are a must. Use of screenshots comes under fair use as this is a non-profit website and we are using the screenshots simply to share knowledge, not as a replacement to the game (in fact unless you play the game, this wiki is entirely useless). When uploading images for the wiki, please ensure they are cropped so that only what is necessary is shown. e.g. If you are getting a screenshot of a character, do not have a hobgoblin in the background. This makes the wiki clearer for other users. However, if you are taking a screenshot for a quest, using the same example as above, if hobgoblins are central or relevant to the quest then consider including them in the screenshot. It is preferable for screenshots used in infoboxes to be 300x185 pixels (see golden ratio), but not required. Of the two dimensions, the 300 pixel width is more important, especially as a minimum size so that the image fills the full space of the infobox. If a screenshot must be larger, try to constrain it to this ratio. However, above all, the main priority is to encompass the entirety of the subject, such as a character or building. For items and icons, it is preferable to use images exported directly from the game with transparency preserved, rather than screenshots from inventory. See Category:Source browsers and editors for tools that can help with this. The wiki uses .png files for pictures and .gif files for animated pictures. Area maps may need .jpg format, due to their size. We don't recommend any other file types. Use of coordinates When containers, characters, or other items in the game may be hard to locate for players, coordinates may be provided to help pinpoint the location. Coordinates should be provided in the following format: parenthetical notation, X coordinate followed by Y coordinate separated by a period, e.g. (xxxx.xxxx). On the first occurrence of coordinates on a page, please include a link to the coordinates page as shown. When adding coordinates as a "tag" to an object or area, it is preferable to use the location templates, by typing (area can be omitted when not necessary, such as coordinates on an area's own page). As an example of this template in action, coordinates will appear like this: To distinguish between games, and should be used, rather than the base template. For more information, see Template:Location. While sometimes helpful, coordinates should not be provided for everything on this wiki. Many players will not know how to use them or will not bother using them in most cases, and it can harm the readability of articles. Keep in mind that the Baldur's Gate series is now available on platforms and game consoles where coordinates are impossible to see, and there is no substitute for ordinary directions, e.g. north of the library and east of the big tree. Current administrators External links *Glossary of American terms not widely used in the United Kingdom *American and British English spelling differences Category:Policies